“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, an initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.” – 4/5 stars!

Attention! This book contains: innocence, smooth skin, obsession, scholars, deception, desire, and a lot of… preying on children.

Humbert Humbert – scholar, aesthete and romantic – has fallen completely and utterly in love with Dolores Haze, his landlady’s gum-snapping, silky skinned twelve-year-old daughter. Reluctantly agreeing to marry Mrs Haze just to be close to Lolita, Humbert suffers greatly in the pursuit of romance; but when Lo herself starts looking for attention elsewhere, he will carry her off on a desperate cross-country misadventure, all in the name of Love. Hilarious, flamboyant, heart-breaking and full of ingenious word play, Lolita is an immaculate, unforgettable masterpiece of obsession, delusion and lust.

So I finally read “Lolita”. Sure, I was creeped out like I thought I would be, but honestly… it wasn’t as bad as I thought. I heard a lot of people saying this book made them feel super uncomfortable and that it was horrible to read his thoughts – and while they have a point and I agree, maybe I expected something overwhelmingly graphic and horrifying.

And that was exactly my biggest concern going into this book. I was concerned the “physical” scenes were graphic, but fortunately the author kept it “clean” and there were no details during those scenes. I’m super glad the author decided “not to feed” the creeps! It sure made reading a little more… comfortable?

So if you don’t know about this book, this story is about Humbert Humbert – what a stupid name btw -, who is fascinated by what he calls “nymphets” or “lolitas” – also know as… female children. It’s an interesting book because you get to see what a person with no morals or common sense thinks like. He is a repulsive villain who keeps justifying his actions, “falls” in love with these children and preys them.

But is he really in love? Because one thing I found funny while reading this book is how he keeps talking about how in love he is with “Lolita”, and constantly talks about how smooth her skin is and how sweet and innocent she is… but he absolutely hates her personality. It’s comical how his feelings change as soon as she opens her mouth. Is he really in love, or is it physical attraction? As you would expect, his attraction decreases significantly when she starts getting older – still a teen, but older.

As you can probably tell by now, this is obviously not a love story. I would say this is pure obsession and ugly manipulation. The book felt very real. It was disturbing, but I feel like this could be a true representation of a lot of creeps out there. It’s a work of art. A poetic, impactful, ugly and disturbing work of art. But a work of art, nonetheless.